Tonight was a special game with the Bulldogs playing in front of the big league crowd in Montreal. Between that an Dustin Tokarski's obvious motivation playing against his old organization, Hamilton had some extra juice for this one.

These two clubs square off again tomorrow night, and Syracuse should have Brett Connolly in the lineup.

With a glut of players occupying the organizational blueline, the Tampa Bay Lightning came up with a new plan for Drew Olson and Carl Nielsen.

Despite spending more than a decade as defensemen, the pair was signed and turned into forwards. A dozen games into their rookie seasons, Olson and Nielsen are getting acclimated with the position change with the Syracuse Crunch.

“At first it was a little different, I wasn’t really sure what to expect or what to think about it,” Nielsen said. “But the more I play it, the more comfortable I feel and actually enjoy playing on the front end -- getting in front of the net and going into the corners as opposed to playing defensively.”

In his first taste of professional hockey last season, Tanner Richard learned the importance of being versatile.

The Syracuse Crunch forward started his first game on the fourth line, but was promoted to the top line after a mid-game injury. The lines shuffled a few more times, and after reinforcements were sent for the team’s Calder Cup run, the 20-year-old fresh out of junior was back to a grinding line to finish out his eight-game stint.

Although he was a playmaking first-line center with the Ontario Hockey League’s Guelph Storm, Richard has become acclimated with his role changing on a game-to-game or shift-to-shift basis.

Cedrick Desjardins stopped 32 shots during regulation and overtime, as well as three out of four shootout attempts, but the Syracuse Crunch fell to the Albany Devils, 2-1, at the Onondaga County War Memorial Saturday.

"Cedrick was the reason we got one point tonight," said Syracuse coach Rob Zettler. "We gave up a number of Grade A chances, including breakaways and point blank shots that we normally don't give up...He came up huge for us."

Both goaltenders played really well and it took a laser from Kucherov to get anything at all on Kincaid. These games happen over the course of the year. The key is to not start cutting it too fine on your chances or overpass just because you've had a little scoring block.

Vladislav Namestnikov was the game's third star. It was kind of a perfect storm against Syracuse with Korobov up in Tampa and Taormina and Nesterov out, along with the top line auditioning a new winger with Brown up and Helenius possibly a little rusty in his first start back. Life in the minors. They'll build off the fact they won the final 40 minutes of the game 3-2. They face Albany tomorrow.

Danick Gauthier's expected stay with the Syracuse Crunch was one game.

Sent down to the ECHL Florida Everblades at the beginning of the season to find his confidence and improve his work ethic, the 6-2 forward was brought back earlier this month to temporarily fill a space in the lineup.

"He showed up and he played well," said Crunch coach Rob Zettler. "We thought we'd give him another chance and he continues to play well."

Gauthier has made the most of his latest opportunity. The 22-year-old registered three points in his first four games with Syracuse, and has earned a shot on the Crunch's top line alongside Nikita Kucherov and Vladislav Namestnikov.